A very rare DB opening and ending instrumental

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tronk21
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A very rare DB opening and ending instrumental

Post by tronk21 » Mon Nov 09, 2020 8:45 pm

I've stumbled upon a cassette tape that contains some unique material that cannot be found outside of this tape. It's the second tape of the original Dragon Ball. It features the opening and ending themes from the anime. You can look it up on my site:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/2-i-can-sing ... agon-ball/

Side 2 of this cassette features karaoke versions of both songs. These are instrumentals that weren't released on any other album and in any other format. I thought I'd share them with you:

https://mega.nz/file/knYwAbZb#KxM_D_Mot ... uiNIBXByvI

This release is also fascinating for containing sheet music for Mystical Adventure and I'll Give You Romance! Again, I don't think any sheet music for Dragon Ball songs can be found in any other offical release by Columbia Records. So this is some cool stuff.

I uploaded the full rip as-is. I know this is technically released stuff but it's so obscure it may as well be seen as unreleased. I hope there's no objections.

I went through hell to get this tape. First, I bought it in July along with 5 other non-DB tapes that I don't care much about. Then it turned out that the DB cassette was already broken as it arrived. Upon analyzing the other karaoke tapes from the same series (Utaeru-kun Shirīzu) I noticed that the other songs have the same flute-like sound that carries the main melody. So I suspected that the non-working Dragon Ball tape has that same version of its own songs. Then in October the tape appeared on sale once more. I took a risk and bought it again. It just turned out a moment ago that I was right! It's a good thing that this copy of the tape actually can be played too. I thought I'd share the ordeal with you. Tell me what you think of this version.

UPDATE: I've bought a better cassette deck and made a higher quality rip of the full tape. Enjoy!
Last edited by tronk21 on Thu Jun 03, 2021 2:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

kei17
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Re: A very rare DB opening and ending instrumental

Post by kei17 » Wed Nov 11, 2020 3:01 pm

Wow, nice find! Since it's Nippon Columbia themselves, they had access to the original karaoke and overdubbed the melodies on it.

By the way, your site is interesting to read. I didn't know that a drama cassette of DBZ movie 1 ever existed. I wonder whether it's got any differences compared to the original audio.

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Re: A very rare DB opening and ending instrumental

Post by VegettoEX » Wed Nov 11, 2020 3:15 pm

Perhaps related, I saw this movie 4 tape listing pop up-

https://www.ebay.com/itm/184441277761

Similar thing with the songs and movie audio split up across two sides?

I obviously know about the Big Box and movie 11 CD, but these are all new to me!
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tronk21
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Re: A very rare DB opening and ending instrumental

Post by tronk21 » Wed Nov 11, 2020 5:34 pm

kei17 wrote: By the way, your site is interesting to read. I didn't know that a drama cassette of DBZ movie 1 ever existed. I wonder whether it's got any differences compared to the original audio.
Thanks! I've entirely focused on Japanese cassette tapes when it comes to Dragon Ball. I own about 50 of them now and I believe to have the largest collection of Dragon Ball audio tapes in the world.

Yes, there is a drama cassette for DBZ Movie 1 and all the evidence points to the album being in stereo. Unfortunately, I don't own this one as the last time it appeared on sale was 7 years ago. That's how rare it is. I've only got the accompanying book for this one.
VegettoEX wrote: Perhaps related, I saw this movie 4 tape listing pop up-

https://www.ebay.com/itm/184441277761

Similar thing with the songs and movie audio split up across two sides?

I obviously know about the Big Box and movie 11 CD, but these are all new to me!
Yes, I already own the two versions of this DBZ Movie 4 drama tape. The version you see in the listing is the full one. There's also a shorter version of each movie drama tape and of almost every Dragon Ball cassette in general - these are known under the title Koro-chan Pack.

I've made a comprehensive thread about the movie drama cassettes some time ago so perhaps you may want to check it out:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=43499

Also, this other thread may be of interest to you, a thread which surprisingly got no attention:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=44068

This last one is a tape that doesn't use the audio material recorded for the anime. Instead this cassette features newly-recorded performances of Japanese voice actors with songs from one of the Hit Song Collection albums playing in the background.

What I found out during my research is that there are 3 more tapes like this last Buu-arc one from the original Dragon Ball:

http://matela.stronazen.pl/7-dragon-bal ... verything/

http://matela.stronazen.pl/9-dragon-bal ... broadcast/

http://matela.stronazen.pl/10-koro-chan ... d-stories/

The only difference that in the background Kikuchi's music is being played in-between songs. This post from pekindbz's site was the source of my findings:

http://pekindbz.blog90.fc2.com/blog-entry-418.html

I hope to find those 3 tapes and the DBZ Movie 1 drama tape but these are extremely rare and only appear on sale once every couple of years. Also, I would love for some information on my site (which is incomplete at this point) to find its way to this site's database somehow someday. In any case, feel free to use it.

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Re: A very rare DB opening and ending instrumental

Post by kei17 » Thu Nov 12, 2020 3:30 pm

tronk21 wrote: Wed Nov 11, 2020 5:34 pm Yes, there is a drama cassette for DBZ Movie 1 and all the evidence points to the album being in stereo.
When the cover says "stereo," it doesn't automatically mean that all the tracks are stereo. The score of DBZ movie 1 was mixed only in mono, so I don't expect a stereo mix of the movie audio.

Also, this other thread may be of interest to you, a thread which surprisingly got no attention:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=44068

This last one is a tape that doesn't use the audio material recorded for the anime. Instead this cassette features newly-recorded performances of Japanese voice actors with songs from one of the Hit Song Collection albums playing in the background.
I've never heard of that. Thanks for sharing.

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tronk21
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Re: A very rare DB opening and ending instrumental

Post by tronk21 » Thu Nov 12, 2020 6:37 pm

kei17 wrote: When the cover says "stereo," it doesn't automatically mean that all the tracks are stereo. The score of DBZ movie 1 was mixed only in mono, so I don't expect a stereo mix of the movie audio.
Not necessarily. I own both versions (the full one and the shortened one) of DBZ Movie 2, 4 and 6 drama tapes as of now so I can confirm some stuff. I've also got DBZ episode 2 drama cassette.

The cover of both full version and Koro-chan Pack version of DBZ Movie 6 drama tape says only "stereo" and the Kikuchi music on those tapes is in stereo as well as vocal songs. On the other hand, both versions of DBZ Movie 2 and Movie 4 drama cassettes are labeled as "MONO-STEREO" or "STEREO-MONO". And the audio from the movie itself is indeed mono on those tapes and the songs are in stereo. The same goes for the mono episode 2 tape, which is described as "STEREO/MONO" on the cover. If the score from Movie 1 was in mono on this tape, the same label would apply as in the releases above.

But still it's quite illogical for audio from Movie 1 itself to be in stereo as the cues from M800 recording session are mono in all of the releases. However, because of the reasons above, I'm willing to give this drama tape the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the score was mixed in stereo for this release in December 1989 and then they forgot about it in August 1992 when the music from this movie was first released?

Anyway, I strive to find and buy this tape as well as the 3 "Songs and Stories" ones. I'll surely make a thread with samples should I obtain any of them.

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